Flint mayor says use bottled water and filters as pipe replacement continues

FLINT, MI - Mayor Karen Weaver is advising Flint residents to continue drinking bottled water and using water filters as she heralded the ongoing pipe replacement efforts in the city.

Weaver held a press conference Tuesday, Dec. 4, at Flint City Hall to address those efforts and the work expected to continue into summer 2019, which includes checking several thousand more service lines and restoration of streets and yards.

"We're not finished, so I don't want anybody to be confused about that," she said while announcing the city has excavated more than 18,300 service lines since the beginning of the FAST Start program in March 2016.

The excavations were targeted, Weaver said, as part of a lawsuit settlement by groups including the Concerned Pastors for Social Action and Natural Resources Defense Council demanding funds to search for lead and galvanized steel pipes.

"When we started this, we were with General (Michael) McDaniel and (University of Michigan) and some pipes were identified as priority, about 18,000 that they called the hot spots and said that those were areas where we had a high concentration of kids, the homes were older in those areas, so the probability of finding lead service lines was much greater," said Weaver.

This year's Phase 5 of service line replacements is being funded by a $97 million settlement in which the NRDC is included as a plaintiff.

The city's latest figures show of 18,313 pipes excavated at Flint homes since the beginning of the FAST Start program in March 2016 that 7,707 homes have been identified as having lead and/or galvanized lines and replaced, including 1,479 in 2018.

Pastor Allen Overton of the Concerned Pastors group said more work still needs to be done.

"The City needs to finish the job of finding and replacing the lead pipes in Flint, as our agreement demands that they do," he said of the settlement.

The NRDC wrote a letter on Sept. 28 to the city stating it was in violation of the settlement because it had focused its efforts this year on digging up areas known to have copper service lines rather than focus on high priority areas know to have hazardous lines.

"While the city has dug up or check(ed) 18,000 pipes, and we agree that's promising progress, they've not complied with the legal obligations of the settlement," she said. "The city is required to target homes that have hazardous pipes, they haven't done that this year. They've focused their efforts on checking homes known to the have copper."

About 84 percent of FAST Start's excavations this year have found copper to copper pipes and only 16 percent of digs uncovered hazardous service lines. The hit rate for finding and replacing lead service lines last year was 80 percent.

Flint is required, by the settlement, to find and replace a minimum of 6,000 lead or galvanized service lines per year. Weaver said Tuesday the city had met that goal one year ahead of time.

Chaudhary commented "It's great the city's ahead of schedule, but by no means has it complied with the terms set forth in the settlement."

The NRDC sent Flint officials a proposal on Nov. 16 to resolve issues they claim are arising out of the city's failure to prioritize the removal of lead and galvanized service lines. The MDEQ previously stated it is withholding $2.1 million in state funding and $431,269 in federal funding until Flint agrees to the NRDC's proposal.

The city has submitted three reimbursement requests to the state, according to a representative from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality. One request for $4 million is finalized and two others are currently being reviewed.

After reviewing the $4 million request, the state removed the "ineligible" costs for now, reimbursing Flint with only $1.4 million in state funding and $289,321 in federal funding.

Had the city agreed to the terms outlined in a Nov. 1 letter from the Attorney General's office, its $4 million disbursement request, along with any requests for work done prior to Nov.1, would be reimbursed to Flint.

Flint officials previously expressed concern that any delay in payment would threaten the city's liquidity, and demanded the MDEQ to reimburse its requests in full immediately.

When asked about the potential for returning to the hydrovac method of checking pipes that has been shown to be significantly less expensive than digging and reburying, Weaver said she is "not going to be bullied into doing that."

She expressed concerns the hydrovac method may miss some spliced lines. Weaver did not comment on the $500,000 that Goyette Mechanical has estimated in additional costs for digging.

"I'm using the money responsibly. The most responsible thing to do is to protect the health of the people in the city of Flint, so I'm not going to change that," she said, later adding "The only money we don't have right now is the money the state is trying to hold from us."

Flint officials stated in a Nov. 26 letter the state has no authority to withhold disbursing funds for service line work that didn't exceed the $5,000 limit per home outlined in the $97 million settlement.

"The city demands that the state fulfill its obligations under the settlement agreement and reimburse the city for its 2018 service line replacement activities, including the open-cut excavations that were the city's approved method of excavation in 2018," the letter stated.

Weaver cautioned during the press conference that Tuesday's announcement did not signal an "all clear" on the replacement issue or for the city's water quality in general.

"We still want to address the other pipes, the remaining 10 to 12 thousand pipes and then have the medical community sign off," she said. "Even before that, I know they're going to say we need to test for a (certain) amount of time."

Ed Tharp, Flint Action and Sustainability Team deputy program manager, wrote in an Aug. 14 memorandum that 90 percent of those lines are expected to be copper and would not have to be replaced.

Weaver urged residents to continue using bottled water and filters -- like she does at her own home -- until all pipes are checked and needed replacements are made.

Weaver said the city has been in discussions with other communities about the replacement work being done in Flint and how it could be used by others.

"If we can't share lessons learned, then shame on us," she commented. "I think that's our ethical and moral responsibility is to be able to let other communities know what kind of things to look, for what kind of questions to ask to address their issues."